Friday, the 16th of May, 2014 is the 136th day in 2014 and in the 20th calendar week.
General Events:
Wear Purple for Peace Day
May 16, 2014 in the World
May 16 is Wear Purple For Peace Day. Of course, we should all be working towards world peace, simply because we should. But today is about more than that.
You’d think that this day originated in protest of a particular war or conflict. Or, perhaps it should have been conceived by the UN, or another peacemaking or peace keeping group. Our extensive research found no evidence supporting the origin of this holiday stemming from these sources.
Rather, we found this day to be a stellar event. It seems some of you out there fear that aliens from outer space consider earthlings to be too hostile (you’ve got that right). As a result, they have yet to visit or make contact with us. So, some of you decided to promote world peace by establishing Wear Purple for Peace Day.
The goal of Wear Purple for Peace Day is to make the world a peaceful place and, of course, encourage alien species to make contact with earth.
Do you want to meet aliens for another planet? Me, too! So, lets all wear purple for peace today.
Where is Wear Purple for Peace Day?
Worldwide
Love a Tree Day
May 16, 2014 in the World
Love a Tree Day takes place on May 16, 2014. It’s a holiday to show your love for trees, maybe by giving them a great big hug. Trees play a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues. Trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of animals and plants. Tropical rainforests are one of the most biodiverse habitats in the world. Trees provide shade and shelter, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, and fruit for food as well as having many other uses.
Where is Love a Tree Day?
Worldwide
Biographer’s Day
May 16, 2014 in the World
Biographies dominate the publishing industry’s bestseller lists. However biographical writing has not always enjoyed such popularity, and biographical conventions have evolved considerably over the centuries.
The modern style of biography originated in the eighteenth-century and is most closely associated with James Boswell, who undertook an extraordinary biography of his charismatic companion Samuel Johnson – poet, journalist, critic, and writer of the first English dictionary.
Warm, expansive, uncompromising, and exhaustively detailed, Boswell’s ‘Life of Samuel Johnson’ established a new way of writing biography and shaped the emergence of the biography format that is popular today.
Biographers Day commemorates the first meeting of Boswell and Johnson in 1763 in a London bookshop and it’s a great day to celebrate the genre. Why not mark Biographers Day by reading a new biography, revisting an old favourite, or perhaps even taking a look into Boswell’s ‘Life of Samuel Johnson’ itself.
Where is Biographer’s Day?
Worldwide
National Bike to Work Day
May 16, 2014 in the USA
National Bike to Work Day is observed on May 16, 2014. Bike to Work Day is an annual event across the United States and Canada that promotes the bicycle as an option for commuting to work. Leading up to Bike to Work Day, national, regional, and local bicycle advocacy groups encourage people to try bicycle commuting as a healthy and safe alternative to driving by providing route information and tips for new bicycle commuters. On Bike to Work Day, a wide variety of bicycle-related events are organized. Bike to Work Day was originated by the League of American Bicyclists in 1956 and is a part of Bike-to-Work Week, which is in turn part of National Bike Month.
Where is National Bike to Work Day?
Nationwide USA
National Defense Transportation Day
May 16, 2014 in the USA
National Defense Transportation Day takes place on May 16, 2014. National Defense Transportation Day is a United States Federal Observance Day observed on the third Friday in May. The week during which the day falls is often observed by a wide range of activities including poster contests for schools, educational expositions on transport, and programs with guest speakers. On National Defense Transportation Day, the president urges “the people of the United States, including labor, management, users, and investors, in all communities served by the various forms of transportation to observe National Defense Transportation Day by appropriate ceremonies that will give complete recognition to the importance to each community and its people of the transportation system of the United States and the maintenance of the facilities of the system in the most modern state of adequacy to serve the needs of the United States in times of peace and in national defense.”
Where is National Defense Transportation Day?
Nationwide USA
National Sea Monkey Day
May 16, 2014 in the USA
National Sea Monkey Day is observed on May 16, 2014. Sea-Monkeys is a brand name for brine shrimp – a group of crustaceans that undergo cryptobiosis – often sold in hatching kits as novelty aquarium pets. Invented in 1957 by Harold von Braunhut, the product was heavily marketed, especially in comic books, and remains a presence in popular culture. Initially called “Instant Life”, von Braunhut changed the name to “Sea-Monkeys” in 1962. This was based on the supposed resemblance of the animals’ tails to those of monkeys, and their salt-water habitat. The product was intensively marketed in comic books.
The colony is started by adding the contents of a packet labelled “Water Purifier” to a tank of water. This packet contains salt and some brine shrimp eggs. After 24 hours, this is augmented with the contents of a packet labelled “Instant Life Eggs”, containing eggs, yeast, borax, soda, salt, and sometimes a dye. The animals which hatched from the eggs over the previous day seem to appear instantly. “Growth Food”, containing yeast and spirulina is then added every few days.
Where is National Sea Monkey Day?
Nationwide USA
Historical Events:
1204 – Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople.
1527 – Florence becomes a republic
1606 – 2,000 foreigners murdered in Russia
1763 – Samuel Johnson 1st meets his future biographer James Boswell in London
1817 – Mississippi River steamboat service begins
1862 – Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir builds 1st automobile
1866 – Charles Elmer Hires invents root beer
1875 – Quake in Venezuela & Colombia kills 16,000
1881 – World’s 1st electric tram goes into service in Lichterfelder (near Berlin)
1891 – George A Hormel & Co introduce Spam
1911 – Remains of a neanderthal man found in Jersey UK
1927 – Supreme Court ruled bootleggers must pay income tax
1943 – Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto ends after 30 days of fighting
1960 – Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
1969 – Venera 5 lands on Venus, returns data on atmosphere
1971 – Bulgaria adopts its constitution
1983 – Lebanese parliament accept peace accord with Israel
1988 – US Supreme Court rules trash may be searched without a warrant
1993 – Farmer Sugeng finds 1.2 million year old Pithecanthropus IX skull
2004 – The Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kiev, Ukraine. Here during 1930s and early 1940s communist bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians.
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